Thin Ice
by ChestnutBrumby
Summary: Lieutenant Bucky Barnes has some hard truths to face and he isn't expecting any help, so it's not exactly welcome when it does find him. T for language. Natasha/Clint hints at the start.


"Clint, this is not a big ask."

Clint idly spun an arrow between thumb and forefinger. "Why is there mall footage of you kissing Rogers? Nat, you didn't tell me about that."

A sigh. "You weren't meant to know. We were compromised. A Hydra agent was seconds away from spotting us."

"Ah, the old public display of affection making people uncomfortable trick. A classic."

She ignored the faint hint of sarcasm in his voice, that only she knew him well enough to pick up on. "I didn't hear you complaining when _we_ had to do it."

"_Had_ to, huh? What's this favour you want, again?"

"Come on Clint, you owe me."

"Owe you? What for this time?"

"Madrid."

"Madrid, oh that's amusing. _Beijing_."

"Well if you're going to bring up Beijing why not Kyoto?"

"Newcastle."

"Newcastle England or Newcastle Australia?"

"We were never in Newcastle, England."

"Clint - please?"

That did it. For all that Clint respected Natasha as the strongest person he knew - he knew Demi-Gods, Iron man and the Hulk - she had an ace up her sleeve, and she knew it - he couldn't say no to her.

And that was how Clint "Hawkeye" Barton found himself approaching the man sitting on the fountain's concrete edging, staring blankly into space as if immune to the riot of autumn colour around them.

Clint knew better.

"Lieutenant Barnes." Clint seated himself a few inches out of arms' reach. It was fairly cold for the season, and Barnes probably didn't look out of place with the long trenchcoat and the dark gloves covering his hands.

The unshaven face swiveled to face Clint as if he couldn't believe another human had willingly sat near him. Clint registered the flash of recognition, followed by the barely contained aggression when he placed the pieces together. The fingers of his left hand clenched into a fist but Clint held up his own peaceably. "If you know of me, you know that if I wanted you dead, I'd've put an arrow through your neck from 900 feet away."

"Then what the hell do you want? Did Rogers send you?"

"Nope, but not far off. Natasha did - she knows Steve's about to start a one-man manhunt for you. She's worried he might end up at the bottom of a lake again."

Barnes visibly stiffened, his frosty gaze boring into Clint and giving the archer the uncomfortable feeling that he was being X-rayed for potential weaknesses. "Looking for me? Doesn't he have bigger things to worry about?"

"Bigger than his former best friend from the 1940's turning up alive, if a little modified?" Clint questioned mildly. Barnes scowled, leaning in as if he were thinking about grabbing Clint around the neck and throwing him over the fountain. Clint refused to obey the instinct to draw back.

"So why did _you_ come?" Demanded Barnes in a low, 'answer-wrong-and-I'll-snap-your-neck' tone.

"That's a good question. Short response is... I have some idea of what you've gone through."

That, for Barnes, was the wrong answer. Clint thought that he could rely on his reactions if things got out of hand, but they were second to Barnes' assassin-trained, metal-honed iron fist. Which closed around Clint's neck, and he rose up to lift him off his feet in a suffocating grasp. If it hadn't been a bitingly cold autumn afternoon, there would have been a doze tourists within snapshotting distance to record the moment.

Clint prised desperately at the metal fingers crushing his windpipe and forced what breath he had out before he lost the ability to speak. "Nat'll kill you." He croaked, kicking Barnes's kneecap. It connected, but bounced off without the man flinching.

"You have no idea what I've been through." Barnes used the same dangerously low voice, but he did drop Clint, where he crumpled in an inelegant heap back onto the fountain edge. And he didn't leave. Once Clint got his voice back (he was going to be bruised as shit in the morning) he put it to good use.

"I don't know how caught up you are with the team. You know I worked with Steve, and the Avengers team, but the truth was for a large part of the time they assembled, it was me they were up against. A guy called Loki used some tech not from around here to invade my brain. Turned me against the only person in the world I had left to care about."

Barnes hadn't sat back down, but Clint could tell by the stiff set of his shoulders he was listening, and that a nerve had been struck.

"At times, I almost felt like me. Like I might have said what I would have said, if I were actually control of myself. But it gave me tunnel vision - somehow all that mattered was the mission. Hitting the target. Winning the game. I knew that part of me was always inside me, but Loki took it and made it all I was, so nothing else left."

It was becoming harder to look at Barnes. His icy expression was fracturing. The tortured look in his eyes Clint had seen in his own, staring out at him from the mirror.

"How? Once you were back - how did you stay that way?" There was desperation now, and he had turned so he was within the danger zone of arms' reach again, but Clint stayed put.

"I had people who needed me. One in particular. In the end, I sorted out myself for them. I'm not saying there aren't nightmares. I'm not saying it happens overnight. I stuck myself in a Tibetan monastery for nine shitting months trying to convince myself I had the guts to get back in the real world. When I did, I thought that people would treat me differently, and they did. But to those people that mattered, nothing had changed. They still needed me."

"No one needs me." His voice was ragged now, and so painfully familiar that Clint had to fight not to succumb to the dark nightmares that still hadn't let him go.

"You might be surprised. You don't have to find out though. You can stay like this." Clint got up carefully, so not to trigger the other man's defenses. Clint placed a card with a hand-written number on the fountain border. Barnes looked down at it blankly, his heart thumping dully against the rusty knives in his chest. "You want me to call Steve."

"No, you need to talk to him in person. He's right here in D.C. He goes down to the Smithsonian every Wednesday after work, and you'll catch him if you're quick today. If not, he'll come and find you, and it won't be on your terms."

Clint turned to leave but a final question stopped him. "Then whose is the number?"

Clint looked down at the card. "Oh - it's mine, if you ever want to get lunch. I know a great Shawarma joint." He nodded farewell, and set off through the gardens without looking back.

Bucky Barnes stared for what seemed like a long time down at the card. Then, as a small breeze kicked up, threatening to sail it into the fountain, he reached out with his left hand and picked it up.

* * *

**A/N**  
**So I saw the Winter Solider today and I was blown away, I was so impressed by it. I've always been a big Marvel nut, but there were so many levels in this movie it was breathtaking. I think that with all the big-name actors, Sebastian Stan gets overlooked with the truly incredibly job getting the audience to care about Bucky. He does so much, with so little, and tonight I am haunted by his expression right after he's through punching Cappy in the face. Hence... this. I thought he and Clint (My main problem with the movie, Clint not being mentioned) had been through sort of similiar things, and might actually grow to being friends.**  
**Let me know what you think!**


End file.
